Minimalism, aka ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’
Getting Back to What Makes Humans Human
The following was originally published in Enough-ism: This Minimalist Wants More and on the Enough-ism Podcast.
Buddhist monks are perhaps some of the original minimalists. And social distancers. They have been historically only allowed to possess eight items.
According to the Pali Canon of the Theravada School of Buddhism’s website and madana.org, they are:
1. an inner robe
2. an outer robe
3. another robe to offer protection if the first two robes don’t do their job protecting you from the weather (perhaps it’s amazing that it’s only eight items and three of them are essentially the same item)
4. a bowl to beg with
5. a water-strainer
6. a razor used to shave the head and beard
7. a needle/thread (this, I assume, counts as one item, although neither clearly take up much space if this wasn’t the case) to mend your clothing, and
8. and approved medicine as needed.
Other authorized items that are sometimes allowed include things such as soap, a lamp, a pair of scissors, a passport, and the like. The goal of living this way is to detach from things.
Some modern minimalists embrace this lifestyle
If you search for “extreme minimalists” online, you’ll come across some, well, extreme examples. One extreme minimalist, for instance, who lives in a podshare named Stephen Johnson owns slightly more items than a Buddhist monk does. Eleven items to be exact, including one outfit. He said, of the experience which he called “freeing:”
“Every single day is choose your own adventure.”
Consider another minimalist YouTuber from Austin, Youheum Son, whose channel is called “Heal Your Living.” This young woman calls herself an extreme minimalist. How extreme? In an interview with AOL Lifestyle, she mentioned has a furniture-free apartment, with a hammock as a bed that she can essentially fold up into a backpack.
She said:
“I don’t believe everyone has to eliminate furniture in their life to find happiness or to cultivate mindfulness. … My space is filled with more nourishment and the things that nurture me instead of the furniture that gets in the way of me actually moving freely around my space.”
In Japan, for example, a concept like this is perhaps common. In 16th century Japan, in particular, both nobility and samurai slept on tatami or mats, which some people still sleep on today, according to yahoo!life.
If getting rid of your bed seems like a good thing to do, maybe keep going. According to Michael Tetly, a physiotherapist who observes how creatures in the forest slumber, you don’t actually need a pillow when you slumber. He asks this question you perhaps won’t be able to forget:
“Has anyone ever seen a gorilla shinning up a tree with a pillow?”
(I like to hope that someone, somewhere exists who can say they have.)
Three words to free your mind (but I won’t tell you what they are)
Let’s try an exercise to train your mind as a minimalist (and as a minimalist myself, I still find this complicated!). Think of who you are, using three nouns. (A noun is a person, place, or thing.)
The words you think of now will help determine how far along you are on your minimalist — and spiritual — journey. Words like “dad,” “cellist,” “doctor,” and “grandmother,” are words most people may choose at first, words that tie you to the physical realm.
Now go deeper. Imagine a tree, for example, without a name. Essentially just a mass of leaves, bark, and roots (except without the names “leaves,” “bark,” and “roots).
Such is a concept I first heard from spiritual teacher and writer, Eckhart Tolle. He says:
“Look at a tree, a flower, a plant. Let your awareness rest upon it. How still they are, how deeply rooted in Being. Allow nature to teach you stillness.”
Now, can you think this way now about yourself? Try again now, with three new nouns. Words like “warrior” or “adventurer” or even “class clown” (hey, that totally counts!) perhaps go a bit deeper.
It’s this kind of thinking minimalists are good at. They question their greater role or roles in life, the role of their belongings, and what role their greatest passions play in their lives.
Congrats, by the way. That exercise isn’t easy. It’s also one you can do throughout your life, no matter where you are in your journey. Perhaps even as a check-in of sorts with yourself to see what kinds of words come to mind first versus how you’re feeling about yourself at that time.
Strong? Defeated? Exhausted? Sensual? Bored?
Consider how this exercise can offer a pulse of how you’re really doing during a given time.
Minimalism is not just about living with less. It’s about living with purpose and making room in your mind and your heart for what fills you with bliss and peace.
Two things you already know, but will now know differently
You read that sub-title right. Here are two very simple yet life-changing personal examples of how to incorporate more minimalism in your life.
One way to live a little more like a Buddhist monk, if you will, is to get rid of your television. Now, we have mini TVs in our pockets at all times via our phones, but something about getting rid of the TV itself which takes up energy in a room makes a big difference.
According to a Comcast study, the novel COVID-19 pandemic, in particular, has changed how Americans watch TV — The average American home has the TV on for 66 hours a week. Streaming and online video consumption are up by over a third since before things were first shut down in mid-March, 2020, according to Studyfinds.org. There’s a 40 percent increase recently in late-night TV watched between 11 PM and 2 AM.
People are apparently watching a lot of news, too during the pandemic. Drama shows, in particular, are more popular, which perhaps seems odd given the regular news has enough sadness and anxiety tied to it. According to The Telegraph, we humans like crime shows because they reveal to us (in a safe way) our dark nature.
On that note (scary commercials let alone scary movies aren’t my jam), by getting rid of my television and all the drama (and drama shows) tied to it, I had the mental energy, clarity, and drive to write these very words. I am staring at these words right now as I type them out on my tiny little laptop. And soon, someone like you will be consuming my ideas. Digesting my content. Judging it. Assessing it. Agreeing with it, or questioning it curiously.
Perhaps one day these very words are translated into another language — one I don’t speak — and my ideas then reach the minds of people I myself cannot communicate with sans the help of Google translate. These kinds of ideas are ones I feel like I have time to develop when I slow down my life and I sit in stillness.
One day, this book becomes a best-seller (in my dreams) and I’m off on a world book tour (ditto for the “in my dreams” part). All because I turned off my TV one day and suddenly had space to write. And, hey, if only like thirteen people, including my neighbor’s best friend’s dog, downloads this book, that’s cool, too. The point is, I’m creating versus consuming and I’m in a better headspace overall because of it.
Consider how choosing to be bombarded day in and day out with the news — I’m talking about the kind of news that’s more noise than information you need to make a life decision — weighs heavy on your mind. Watching too much TV means you’re being passively stimulated. Suddenly, you may find the ability to think deeply becomes a thing of the past.
Watching TV often starts young. How young? Think three years old. According to kten.com, YouTube dominates the viewing habits of many three- and four-year-old children. You might wonder how kids so young know how to use YouTube. The answer is the microphone. Up to 75 percent of young kids have their own tablets, according to Pediatrics.
Said kten.com, even having a TV in the same room as your baby or toddler negatively impacts how they play and interact with others.
I doubt adults also are impacted similarly, although perhaps hasn’t been done on this just yet.
Workout videos, by the way, that make you stronger and cooking shows that inspire you to try that weird spice that’s been in your cabinet since 2017 don’t count with the above, by the way. Just be mindful about what serves you and what serves to be something you remove from your life, and happily so.
With less, you flow more
You know that feeling when you’re in a flow state? Maybe you get lost in a good art project for the entire afternoon, with no concept of what time it is. Maybe when you play basketball, you’re in the zone hardcore. Maybe when you’re driving down the freeway late at night with the windows down and the radio off, you find your mind is finally able to shut off a bit.
That feeling where your mind gets lost. Chase that. Choose to chase that by your actions, the ones driven by your thoughts. Be mindful by getting rid of what no longer serves you and what actually stresses you out even though you choose to use it all day long.
It’s okay to not know what a real housewife is or to not have your TV ask you if you’re still watching it. (That’s kind of creepy, anyway.)
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Consider the world’s greatest minds and how they recorded their thoughts. Once, I went to the Writer’s Museum in Dublin. As a writer, it was a dreamy experience. Original typewriters everywhere. Ugh. Can you imagine the hell of not being able to press the delete key?
Notebooks filled with impeccable handwriting and even more impeccable ideas — ideas written out by hand, perhaps under a combination of candlelight and moonlight.
I suddenly found myself yearning to live — and write — in a world without Twitter feuds, without hashtags and filters, without the mental clutter the modern Western world tends to bring. Without the constructive conversations versus the spewing of ideas intended to just get a reaction.
There was once a world without TV. Let’s go back to a time of simplicity. You’ll know if something important happens without the news telling you about it ten different ways for nine hours straight across eight media channels, later for you to hop online and see seven new fired up Tweet threads, watch that 6 PM nightly news recap, notice five friends sharing their political views on Facebook within the hour, see four trending hashtags that spark immediate angst, scroll through three fake news headlines at the top of your Facebook feed, take two deep breaths to regroup your values, and a partridge in a pear tree.
I only practice gratitude when dangerously caffeinated
A second way to essentially live a little more like a Buddhist monk? Make your own coffee in the morning — $5 lattes definitely minimize my wallet in a bad way, anyway.
Me? I make my cuppa’ Joe just how I like it (almond milk with a splash of stupidly strong coffee, some cinnamon, some more turmeric, a sly sideways glance at the salt shaker, and a kiss of vanilla extract), I practice gratitude. I think about where all the ingredients came from and how they’ve miraculously arrived at my door.
It baffled my mind recently how fresh coffee beans that smelled like the epitome of whatever fresh coffee beans are supposed to smell like that I was holding in my hands were grown recently in Costa Rica, and were suddenly there in my kitchen, in my hands, there on the other side of the world.
Think about yourself tied to a greater whole. How your Amazon package, for instance, was sent to you via several cars and maybe a boat to arrive in exactly no fewer than two days. Be amazed at what’s all around us that others barely bat an eyelash at.
Perhaps this is a form of prayer, but whatever you wish to call it or not call it, this kind of thinking slows my mind down and connects me to my belongings in the same way it would perhaps as if I were a monk with eight belongings to my name.
Now that’s abundance.
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Thanks for reading this excerpt from Enough-ism: This Minimalist Wants More. Can’t get enough of Enough-ism? ❈ Visit IAmEnoughism.com ❈ and follow @IAmEnoughism on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Medium. Image credits: Canva/Unsplash
About the author: Yugen Bond, B.Msc., is a metaphysics writer, podcast host, and reiki master who once despised meditation, had both too much and nothing to wear, and didn’t know how to slow down her thoughts. What a journey it’s been. Time to share it with the world, especially with you. Business inquiries: enoughismpodcast@gmail.com.